I have been sworn to secrecy and so cannot say much more about my trip to Birmingham last week. I went up on the train with Lorraine and we were met at Birmingham New Street by one of her ex-army buddies; a fine woman called Babs who was immensely proud (and I would be) of her Warwickshire roots.

After my secret meeting, Babs offered to show us around the city and after giving us a potted history of the Custard Factory; did you know Alfred Bird’s was the first custard to be developed without eggs? Well I didn’t know either having never made custard before with or without eggs but apparently it is quite a feat.

So after lunch in some massive food court in some shopping mall we made our way on foot towards the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery but not before stopping at the fountain outside the City Council offices in Victoria Square to admire the statue in Mistry’s fountain ‘The River’ fondly referred to as ‘The floozie in the jacuzzi’.

None of this is a digression, as the afternoon wore on, I began to appreciate more and more the beauty of nature and the beauty of invention and not for the first time my heart went out in great appreciation of the gifts that people have to create the wonderful things we see around us and so often take for granted.

At the Birmingham Museum and Art gallery I was overwhelmed by what is apparently the largest collection of pre-raphaelite paintings in the world. Wow and double wow!! Try as I might, I could not scrutinize enough the detail of the paintings and imagine at the same time what it would have been like to be a fly on the wall in the studio of the artists as these paintings were being created and to be that same fly several hundred years later.

If looking at the pre-raphaelite paintings was the icing on my Brummie cake, the cherry on top was yet to come because in one of the smaller galleries was a display of 10 drawings by the master himself – Leonardo da Vinci!  Joy of joys, I could barely contain my excitement. Before my eyes were images I had only ever seen in my art history books. The drawings were exquisite and much smaller than I’d ever imagined them to be but the detail… I was amazed at how fresh the drawings were considering they were several hundred years old.  Some of the drawings had also been illustrated with notes in very tiny handwriting and it was all back to front; the original da vinci code.  I can only describe how I felt in a single word; awesome! The master’s hand preserved for posterity.

Exhibition of 10 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Birmingham Museum of Art